


You Don't Know, But I Am Noticing

by Sakrabur



Series: Falling, Stumbling and other things [3]
Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: First Meetings, Getting to Know Each Other, Jaehyun watching Doyoung in a hopefully non creepy way?, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-03
Updated: 2021-01-04
Packaged: 2021-03-13 17:42:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28532364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sakrabur/pseuds/Sakrabur
Summary: Just Jaehyun struggling because of Doyoung.Working Title: Stumbling But It Is Jaehyun Being a Stalker(Can be read without reading Stumbling)
Relationships: Jung Yoonoh | Jaehyun/Kim Dongyoung | Doyoung
Series: Falling, Stumbling and other things [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1965568
Comments: 4
Kudos: 13





	You Don't Know, But I Am Noticing

**Author's Note:**

> I reworked this chapter and I went through all of Stumbling again to make some changes and now I am more happy with this! I am currently working on new chapters and a new story, Thank you for being patient! 
> 
> I hope you enjoy reading! Feel free to let me know what you think!

It was a late afternoon when Jaehyun saw him the first time. He was on his way home, his earphones playing soft music. There were not many people around him. There was a woman he sometimes saw picking up her son at the school. A man obviously on his way home from work, his gaze empty, watching the world go by. A boy around his age in a suit looking stressed. And another boy. Jaehyun looked at him for a long while. There was nothing special about his looks. He had sharp features and his eyes held millions of emotions. Jaehyun wasn’t the best at reading people, but seeing that boy sitting on the train, it felt easy. The boy had found interest in the boy in the suit for some reason. Jaehyun couldn’t tell why, but he smiled at the sincerity in the boy’s eyes. It was mesmerising in a way. He spend the whole ride studying the boy’s face.  
When he finally got up, Jaehyun was disappointed. He still had a station left. His eyes followed the boy’s every step. There was an air of false confidence. The boy was nervous. Jaehyun silently watched as the train came to a halt. He barely registered the boy in the suit getting ready to go out as well. He only noticed when he saw the boy looking over to make eye contact with the boy in the suit. When the boy missed the button to open the door, Jaehyun had to smile. It was endearing. From his position Jaehyun couldn’t see the boy’s face, but he could imagine the look of horror, which he then tried to mask quickly. The fast walk the boy had to his car was laced with forced confidence. It made Jaehyun smile. He probably looked like a creep, but he couldn’t help but smile. The train started moving again. Jaehyun briefly thought about praying to see the boy again. It was refreshing to see that much emotion extruding of someone.

University was still slow and pleasant. Having nothing to read or do for classes yet, Jaehyun decided to use his free time to read on one of the benches in the hall. He quickly got distracted by a group of people loudly arguing about music. He wasn’t too bothered as the argument sounded fun. It was something about music. He kept his gaze on his book, pretending to read, while he listened to the group talking. When the mild shouting finally died down, Jaehyun looked up. The group of people walked towards him. He was surprised to see the boy from the train with them. It has been a while since Jaehyun first saw him, and he had almost forgotten about their encounter. Right then, seeing him again, Jaehyun remembered the emotions in the boy’s eyes. It brought back the wonder Jaehyun felt the first time. The memory made him smile brightly.  
“Where do you have to go next, Doyoung.” One of them asked and Jaehyun was delighted to see the boy answering. So, Doyoung was his name. Jaehyun wondered whether they would see each other again. The group passed and once again, Jaehyun went unnoticed.

They shared a class together. The first time Doyoung and his group of friends came in, Jaehyun was delighted. He felt like the third time would be the charm and thought about whether to approach the group or not. He watched them select seats in front of him, already engaged in a heated conversation. The first day of their class, Jaehyun didn’t find the courage to get in between. Neither did he the next few times. Each time they had the class, Jaehyun would sit close to Doyoung and his friends, listening in to their conversations. Since he didn’t make an effort to find someone, he could talk to himself, he had nothing else to do when waiting. After some time, it became clear that Doyoung had some trouble with a girl and his friends seemed eager to solve them. Jaehyun hated not being able to see Doyoung’s face when they talked about that girl. He guessed that the emotions would be visible in his face. From Doyoung’s voice, his confusion and hurt were evident, and Jaehyun would have to lie that he wasn’t affected by it. He didn’t want to admit it, but he was far to invested in Doyoung’s stories for it to be considered normal. He wanted to talk to Doyoung, tell him that it was okay. Something told him that Doyoung wouldn’t appreciate that. 

Just listening to Doyoung’s voice and the supportive words of his friends made Jaehyun emotional. He was almost certain that he felt jealous of the group for being so close.  
Jaehyun’s closest friends didn’t go to the same university and he hadn’t found anyone to befriend yet. He just hoped no one would notice him listening in. When he was paired with one of the guys around Doyoung, he tried to hide his joy, to not come off as a weirdo.

Maybe Jaehyun had a chance to make friends with them sometime.

After weeks of crisis talks, they just stopped. Jaehyun was happy that Doyoung was able to break ties with that girl. He liked that the tension was gone from Doyoung’s voice. And maybe he felt now Doyoung would finally look in his direction.

~

It turns out that Jaehyun got the chance to meet Doyoung properly sooner than he expected. When he entered the room for one of his classes, his gaze fell on Doyoung immediately. The boy sat there seemingly uninterested. Jaehyun noticed the tension in his shoulders, however. He wondered whether Doyoung was insecure about making friends. He didn’t seem like the type. Just for a brief moment, Jaehyun wondered if it was the right decision to go up to Doyoung casually. He supposed that greeting him with “I’ve been watching you for the past months” wasn’t the wisest decision. After a deep breath, Jaehyun walked up to Doyoung with as much confidence as he could muster. 

After a short greeting they went silent. It wasn’t uncomfortable, but Jaehyun felt like he was somehow overstepping his boundaries because he knew so much more about Doyoung than he knew about him. On top of that, as much as he wanted to talk to Doyoung, he still wanted to do well in his classes. During the whole class, Jaehyun was aware of Doyoung directly next to him. He didn’t know what his plan was, but he desperately wanted to talk to Doyoung after class. When the lecturer dismissed the class, Jaehyun turned to Doyoung. Maybe to start a conversation, maybe just to look at him. Jaehyun’s hopes were scattered when Doyoung just said goodbye without acknowledging him much. For some reason Jaehyun thought it would be easier to befriend Doyoung. All he managed to do was saying goodbye as well. After the door closed behind Doyoung, Jaehyun just stayed where he sat for longer than necessary. He wondered whether anyone noticed his inner crisis. He needed to vent to Sicheng about this later. It wasn’t like Doyoung was obliged to talk to him, but he still felt rejected. He signed heavily before leaving for his next class. 

The next weeks proofed to be very difficult and slightly awkward for Jaehyun. He did his best to get close to Doyoung without coming off as creepy. Doyoung seemed to be somewhat uncomfortable around him, which proved to be correct when Doyoung continued to avoid him. They talked, and Jaehyun enjoyed it, but there was always a part of him that wanted to know how Doyoung was. All they talked about was their homework. 

Sicheng had to listen to all his worries, but instead of being a helpful friend, he just rolled his eyes whenever Jaehyun started to talk about Doyoung. Apparently, Jaehyun just needed to ‘men up’ (which resulted in an hour-long discussion about the term). It didn’t help Jaehyun at all. He would talk to Kun about wanting to befriend Doyoung, but Kun told him to only mention Doyoung when there was anything interesting happening. (Doyoung using bye instead of goodbye does not fall under the category of something interesting). Instead, Jaehyun spend much of his time just thinking about how to start a conversation. Unfortunately, he wasn’t good at small talk. Time passed with classes and wanting to chat with Doyoung more and soon Jaehyun realized that the semester would be over soon, without him being able to properly befriend Doyoung.

When Doyoung stopped him after one of the classes to tell him something, he felt hope. He didn’t want to admit it, but Doyoung’s constant distance started to get to him. Jaehyun watched silently when Doyoung stumbled on about some error, not really listening to what he was saying. After an embarrassingly long pause, he managed to reply. In his confusion, Jaehyun almost missed Doyoung rushing out of the door. He had no idea what happened, but when he gazed back to his homework, he noticed the passage Doyoung was rambling about earlier. There was indeed a small mistake. Despite himself, Jaehyun had to smile. Next time he would make sure that Doyoung knew that it was okay for him to address things like that to Jaehyun. He was going to make himself as approachable as possible. After assuring Doyoung that he was thankful he pointed out the error, Jaehyun offered to compare homework again, making sure that Doyoung was able to comfortably speak his mind. Jaehyun found that homework and university topics seem to be a save topic for Doyoung. Slowly Doyoung seemed to warm up again and when Jaehyun saw him smile in his presence, he had to stop himself from grinning too wide. After Doyoung left the room that day, reality dawned on Jaehyun, that there was not much time left of the semester. He needed to think of something fast if he wanted to make a proper friend. 

Turns out that he worried for nothing. When Doyoung asked him to go to the university event with him, Jaehyun didn’t even know how to react properly. Doyoung’s proposal came unexpected, but it was more than welcome. Until then a part of Jaehyun still thought Doyoung just humoured him by talking to him because they sat next to each other. It seemed like Doyoung was not as hard to reach after all. Jaehyun couldn’t help but smile at Doyoung's rambling after Jaehyun hadn't responded immediately, due to his surprise. Never before Jaehyun was that excited to say yes to something that had to do with studying.


End file.
